by Peggy Molloy

Created on: January 03, 2011   Last Updated: January 15, 2011

She picked up the telephone, it was late for her to be accepting a phone call. It was her friend Alice, and she was screaming. Her son who was 23 years old had been in a car collision and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Alice was hysterical as this boy was the light and hope of her life.

Two years ago her husband who had always been a superb provider was in a farm equipment accident, and now could not walk on his own. Her other son was brain damaged since birth, so in a way, in terms of dreams for the future happiness of her family, she was experiencing many deaths all at the same moment.

When I screamed at the hospital, the doctor told me in a stern tone that screaming won't help my baby come out any sooner.  I screamed again, and my daughter was out, so please no lectures. Is it the sound of human suffering that awakes a sleeping God? Or are we the ones who are asleep and must scream ourselves awake?

Working as I do, if you call this work, in a shop full of stone Buddhist statues and glorious teak furniture and carvings, it is easy to be smug about death. But really, how dare I? I could walk over and land a big sounding, reverberating "gong" on the gong that must be over a thousand years old by the cash desk. These pieces of furniture are my friends, we like each other and we can talk openly an plainly.

If I lost my daughter for any reason I would weep uncontrollably for the rest of my life. I would get tired of screaming, it takes quite a bit of energy, and I could lose my singing voice. Back to Alice. The burdens of her being seem overwhelming, yet I knew that God was there in the immediate vicinity. Time is her only friend for the time being, so how can she bear it? 

I am sure that her handsome, strong, vivacious young man of a son was her comfort and helper in her already strained and disappointing life. So we suffer to learn compassion, but how compassionate must we be? Please, isn't this just a bit to much for anyone? 

Having a child die is upside down and backwards, and it just shouldn't happen to anyone at any time. It puts our own trivial lives in the forefront only to create the incessant question, why them? I will let the stone statues speak to me with their lessons about time, forgiveness and healing. I will smell the incense of my store and watch the sunbeams bounce from the indoor plants to the people peering into our fabulous windows.

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